Chronicles of Kentrikos
by Schakall
Summary: Think of Yuugi, Atem, Sugoroku, Jonouchi, Seto, Mai, Bakura and more characters  Canon and OCs  immersed in the world of D&D. Magic, horrors, adventures, lost of comedy, some romance and in the future lots of drama and tragedy. By me and my boyfriend.
1. Chapter 1

A young man, approximately 18 years old, with blonde and messy hair, wearing robes of battered brown leather, and cheap green fabrics, walked so cheerfully that he seemed dumb, with a broad smile, barely looking on his way, thinking about the tasty lunch he'd be able to afford after so much time eating leftovers, and then smiling even more thinking that he'd finally sleep in a decent place after finishing the most fruitful job he had done to that day. This young man walked holding his well deserved little bag of coins with pride answered to the name Katsuya Jonouchi.

Jonouchi entered the biggest tavern of the port-city, and he was so distracted that he ran into someone at the door.

"Sorry" both said at unison, colliding again various times while trying to dodge the other to go through the door, until the other man moved aside and gently let the mercenary get inside.

Once inside the tavern Jonouchi sat at the bar, ordered the most elaborated and the biggest dish – and therefore the most expensive, and the best quality bear there was.

* * *

><p>"Grandpa, look, there's some scrolls that could be handy!" pointed a boy with very peculiar hair, of three different colors, that despite being 18 years old was short and had big and childish eyes.<p>

"We don't have money for that!" replied the dwarf of old appearance, that because he wasn't human like the boy he was talking to it was clear that they weren't related, despite the affectionate ways of a 'grandpa' he had towards him.

Upon the man of the tired eyes and gray hair fell the accusative eyes of Yuugi, the boy he had talked to, and also Atem's, another boy of very similar appearance to Yuugi, his twin, but his eyes were tougher and made him seem older, and he stood in a way that made him look taller, also, his hair, despite being tricolored like his brother's, he didn't have the border of its bizarre form colored in violet, but in crimson, the same color of his eyes.

"Grandpa, we have more than enough money to buy Yuugi some scrolls"

"But, I wanted us to sleep well and to eat a lot!" said the dwarf faking tears, causing a bit of a scene in the street.

* * *

><p>"Mai, stop sharpening your sword, you're scaring away my audience!" screamed a semi-elf, a bard, frustrated because his act with drums was being completely ruined thanks to the voluptuous blonde who frotted the edge of her long sword against a piece of thick leather.<p>

Mai paid no attention to Trent's complaints, and kept focusing in her occupations, except for a little gaze she gave him, between mocking and threatening.

"Lene! Won't you do anything about this?" cried Trent childishly, as childish as his pout and movements, that were also relatively effeminate.

"I decided I won't get involved in your senseless discussions, I have better things to do" she said with calm, however with an after taste of bad mood in her tone of voice, a young woman of white skin, almost colorless light blue eyes and long black hair that she kept braided on one side. This girl was reading a book about spells, and didn't deviate her sight from what was written on its pages.

"It seems Selene is already tired of your whining"

"Let's see who cried when we find ourselves with too little money to pay for a decent place to sleep in!"

Mai put her sword aside, lay her body against a wall behind her, and said "Whatever, sing and play 'music' all you want".

Then he started playing again, and just as Mai had managed to scare his audience away with her huge sword, he managed to attract a rather big audience in little time, but it wasn't as big as he wanted it to be, and soon, through his singing, he started asking his two friends to dance at the rhythm of his music. What could attract more audience – and with them money – than two attractive women dancing?

"Trent, I'm busy" said Selene, more annoyed each time, still reading her book.

"I have better things to do" replied Mai on her side, while she fixed her arrows.

"Selene, we've been sleeping outdoors for a week! I want to sleep decently for once, and without money, in this expensive city, we won't be able to do it!"

"Argh, alright!" replied furious the spell caster, who left her book aside, stood up, taking off her black cape, that until then had covered her body almost completely, revealing her well shaped figure, plus her outfit that showed and highlighted her curves. And then she started dancing at the rhythm of her friend's music, and just as he suspected, she attracted more people, and more money, and just when it was starting to get dark they had enough money for the three of them to eat and get a place to sleep that night.

* * *

><p>An owl was heard hooting above one of the street lights, which flew to Yuugi's arms, who had a weary face, and above all a fed up one. His brother didn't have a very different expression either, even his falcon that was standing on his shoulder seemed to have a similar mood.<p>

"No place seems good enough"

"Grandpa, this city is pretty big, and this specific street doesn't seem poor, I'm quite sure that any of the lodgings around here is fine" said Yuugi, trying to convince the old man.

"And it's also cold, we're hungry, we're tired and it's very dark, how about the tavern over there? According to the signal the upper floors are used as lodgings" added Atem, pointing one of the many premises of the neighbourhood.

Sugoroku kept meditating for a moment, until his pupils begged him to go to the place Atem had mentioned, and so they ended up going to said place.

Inside, Yuugi and Atem sat at the bar, and Atem started negotiating with the bartender so he would charge them a bit less for the three dinners and for hosting them three, and though the bartender opposed at the beginning, at the end he gave up, and even talked friendly with the two brothers. At the moment they had to order their dinners, and the two twins had already decided what they wanted, they looked towards where they thought the grandpa was, and when they didn't see him there they searched for him with their eyes through the crowded tavern, until they found him, being rather 'joyful', talking with a stranger who was just as drunk as him, as if they were childhood friends, both holding beer jars, with many other empty jars near them.

The brothers rushed to where they were, singing off tune and badly pronounced songs.

"Grandpa!" scolded the pupil with the garnet eyes.

"Do you even know the name of the guy you're singing with?" asked his other pupil.

"Bu-But of c-course I do!" replied the dwarf, quickly whispering to the guy he had befriended, thinking and swearing he was being discreet "What's your name?", and the brothers, hearing him clearly, brought their palms to their faces almost at the same time.

"Jonouchi! Jonouchi the great!"

"The great?"

"Well, just Jonouchi, by now!"

"Then, meet my good friend Jonouchi!"

"Your friend Jonouchi hasn't paid for his dinner yet, and this is starting to seem suspicious!" interrupted the bartender.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm paying, you just wait, I have enough to pay for my food" said with excess of confidence the blonde, turning around to get his little sack of gold tied to his waist. His face turned completely different once he saw that his little sack of coins was indeed a different one much lighter than it should be. He opened it and saw what was in it and the only thing he saw there was a single copper coin, with the seal of a band of pirates more or less known around that area. The poor mercenary went pale, bluealmost, and decided to take the only option he thought being as drunk as he was. "Why pay right now if I'm going to keep drinking!" he resolved with a nervous and too long to be natural laughter.

Jonouchi kept joking too much and giving those nervous laughters, although he was desperate inside, until he got to see between all the people, men in their majority, a specific person, the same one he had stumbled across when he got in. His mind did the obvious calculation, and he realized what had happened with the coins he had worked so hard for.

Before even he could see it he was in a fight, not just with the above mentioned man, but with the rest of the group of pirates there. The grandpa cheered for him from afar in his drunkenness, and even tried to join him, until his pupils pulled him back from his clothes and took him back with them, since both wanted to be as far from the fight as possible.

The witnesses of this encounter more than staying out of it, like the brothers, watched an cheered either Jonouchi or the pirates. Even more, a semielf, Trent himself, who was singing in the streets a while ago, was in charge of the bets, unscrupulously keeping some of the coins that didn't belong to him.

"Hey, Trent, could you tell me what you're doing? Don't think I don't see what you're doing with those coins"

"Sshhhh Mai, do me a favour and don't tell Selene anything"

"Talking about her, where is she?"

"She's putting her stuff away in the room we're sleeping in tonight."

"Let's make a deal my friend" started to propose the blonde with a naughty face, which Trent corresponded with a suspicious one, since Mai rarely made deals with anyone.

"Talk"

"I don't tell Selene anything if you share some of the earnings" offered Mai, with a wink and a smile to get him convinced.

"Under one condition; help me get more people into betting!"

Mai immediately put her cleavage in place, stood on a table and called "Bet here, bet here! Whoever wants to bet come here!" and like flies attracted to sweets a bunch of people formed a line to give their money to the ranger and the bard.

Selene went down the stairs from the second floor of the building to the tavern itself. At last her bad mood was gone, since dancing entertained her, she had left her belongings in the room she and her partners got and had put on her cape again to cover her body and avoid problems with the men there. She was even smiling broadly since she was finally going to spend a night more comfortable, and that kind of smiles were rare in her, since she was usually so easily angered, and Trent and Mai, as much as she cared for them, they tended to drive her nuts quite often. However, she was smiling, even kind of excited as she went downstairs.

"Alright guys, did you order your food alre-?" she tried to ask, interrupted by a man that was kicked off the ground in the middle of the fight and landed against a wall. He almost landed on _her_.

So much for her good mood once she saw all the chaos in there, and not just that, but Trent gathering bets.

And she only saw Trent, because Mai was smart enough to sneak out once she heard Selene's voice.

Selene, burning in anger, walked in Trent's direction, dodging the fists and kicks in her way. Trent didn't see her getting closer, although her rage could be felt in the whole tavern, he didn't even see Mai when she left him for dead, he was too busy trying to get more money out of the costumers of the tavern.

"TRENT!" roared Selene, and only then the named bard noticed her presence, when it was too late, just like a lioness cornering her prey and doesn't make her presence known until she has it in her claws.

"It's not what it seems, I swear! Mai can-!"

And then, when he looked back, he realized that Mai was gone already, probably at the moment she saw Selene coming. "Bitch" muttered the semielf.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

"N-Nothing, nothing!"

"I want you to give them their money back!"

"But, Lene!"

"TRENT!"

"Alright, I'm going!"

While Trent tried to give the money back, the Gods know why, he ended up getting into the fight too, and no matter how much Selene protested, he kept fighting, and he fought enthusiastically, considering he seemed weaker than what he was and considering his androgynous demeanor too.

Selene wasn't the only one having problems trying to get someone out of the fight that grew more grave and that had more people into it as time passed. The grandpa cut loose from Yuugi and Atem's grip, and went to help his great friend he had met a few hours ago against the pirates.

"Grandpa!" screamed the brothers, trying to go through the sea of people to get their tutor out of there.

"MAI!" yelled Selene, even louder than the Mutou twins, calling her partner, until the blonde got to her. Soon the two were doing what they could to take Trent out of there, and just like him, ended up in the fight, punching at par with all the men there.

"Yuugi!" called out Atem, since they had been separated in the crowd and couldn't see him anymore. "Atem!" Yuugi's voice was heard yelling from afar, though his voice was being mitigated by the racket. Yuugi was being swallowed more and more into the crowd with each shove he received, until he was just in the middle of the fight itself, not too far from Jonouchi and Sugoroku. Yuugi started to get desperate, in between the anger and the nervousness, he hid his hand in his cape, and before he pulled out what he was looking for in there, he yelled firmly "Grandpa, Atem, _sparks_!" They, as they heard him, quickly went down to the floor and covered their sights. Selene from some distance saw a young boy doing some curious movements with his hands, and seeing them and associating them with his words, immediately suspected what was coming, took Mai and went down to the floor with her, warning out loud Trent, in Sylvain, "Trent, glitter dust!", and he in a matter of instants covered his sight with his cape.

While all of this happened, Yuugi had already thrown some grayish dust to the air, as he recited obscure words. This dust started sparkling like fireworks, blinding everyone there, and stopping the fight for a moment.

The mix of alcohol in poor Jonouchi's blood, the blindness and the anger that he had, made him loose balance and fall on his back from the tall table he was standing on fighting painfully many pirates by himself. Luckily, his opponents were about as knocked out as he was, since Jonouchi was giving his back to the young wizard, and the pirates were in front of him. On the floor, right where he had fallen, he kept punching and kicking the air blindly, as if he didn't know he had fallen. The bartender, furious, proclaimed "No spells in my tavern!"

Once they recovered their sight, most of the clients of the tavern stayed out of the fight, fearing that more powerful spells could be casted, while the pirates and some others went against Yuugi or Jonouchi. Atem and Sugoroku instinctively ran in assistance of Yuugi.

Selene, in solidarity of those of her trade, went to help the young boy as well. Trent, as if he was the sorcerer's shadow, followed her, and Mai, since she had been hired by both of them to protect them, or as he said, to "save their asses", followed them too.

Jonouchi, getting up from the floor, and seeing himself surrounded by the pirates, saw how the bastard that had stolen his money was running away through the door, unharmed. He couldn't follow him, since his partners were on his way. Following the law that says "my enemy's enemies are my friends", he added himself to the group of the Mutous and company, since he was surrounded and even in his drunkenness he realized he was getting tired.

Trent pulled out his lyre, and improvised the following verses, accompanied by an even more improvised melody, "¡And all of you shall fall!", and then the floor beneath the feet of their enemies turned slippery, as if it was covered in oil or grease, all of them falling, if not by slipping, by domino effect.

These men got up after a few seconds, slipping sometimes as they tried to stand on their feet, ready to keep fighting with them, when unexpectedly the doors of the tavern opened, showing the tall and regal figure of a young man, invested in white armor, with his helmet held by an arm against his body. This man said, with solemn and cold voice, "I am Seto Kaiba, kinght of King Chlothar's court, and I'm here looking for warriors who would want to join my battle against Lord Crawford and his Pink Knights." He finished his words with the same solemnity he had started with, but once he had stopped talking he saw with detention the scene he had interrupted. The clients of the tavern, and the tavern keeper himself, where looking at him in stupor, as if they were frozen.


	2. Chapter 2

Jonouchi woke up, or better said regained conscience, since we can't truly say that what he did last night was falling asleep. He was lying on the floor on the sleeping bag he often used when he had to sleep in the open air, but this time he wasn't out, he was inside a room, by the way, a very well illuminated, with wooden walls and ceiling, and a hubbub inside of it similar to that of a fair.

"Could you stay quiet, my head is killing me" yelled the young warrior, turning face down to avoid the light and sound. _"Wait a minute, where the hell am I, and who are these people?"_ thought Jonouchi in between surprise and fear, he didn't know if the people who were around him were friends or foes, he didn't know how he got there, and what was worse, he didn't remember anything from last night, in fact, the last thing he remembered was him drinking along with a funny dwarf.

He turned around and _tried_ to get up from his improvised bed, since given the state he was in he was unable to move the way he'd wish, his movements were slow and clumsy, felt his body heavy, but at the same time as if he was torn to pieces. When he was getting up from his "bed", his head was hit against by the inferior side of a desk.

Jonouchi fell back to the floor in all his weight, giving a few painful moans, and various dirty words.

"Be more careful" he Heard a woman saying, half scolding. When he head stopped spinning, and he was sure the light wouldn't give him more pain tan he already had, he opened his eyes, and saw that the voice came from a blonde woman, with a good figure and a face that was soft on the eyes, though she had a rather severe expression towards him.

Thinking on how drunk he was the night before, and seeing himself in the same room as that blond, it occurred to him to imagine the reason why both would be together in the same room the next morning.

"Did you and I…?" he asked with honest curiosity and some perversion.

Mai laughed briefly in his face, to later reply to him with total seriousness "Yes, sure, keep dreaming".

Obviously he was wrong with his first supposition, but for some reason he had convinced himself that he had spent the night with someone, and to him the only option was that it had been with one amongst the people who were there. Which worried him a lot, because only two women were there, and one had already turned him down.

When the other maid passed by him, picking up her stuff, he took that opportunity to ask her in hopes that it would've been her, not just for the gender factor, but because she also wasn't aesthetically displeasing.

"Last night, did we…?"

"No." Replied Selene with such coldness that could as well belong to a corpse, even more cutting than Mai, but with no intentions of mocking him.

Jonouchi slipped into desperation, and hoped that at least the person he had slept with had been the semi elf who was near the girl with dark hair, to at least make sure that some of his manhood was still there.

He went to the semi elf, and when he asked Trent, he, instead of calming him down and telling him the truth, decided to play with him for a while, and go along with Jonouchi's fears, telling him about all the positions they supposedly had tried, about how many hours and how many times they had done it, and of course telling him that he had been the dominant one.

Jonouchi stood frozen right there, without knowing what to do; should he believe Trent's words or not, and if he decided to believe him, he wouldn't know what to do with himself from then on.

"You had enough fun with the poor guy, as if the hangover wasn't giving him enough trouble" said one of the Mutou boys, the one they called Atem.

"Pft, how boring, a little lie won't hurt him, sooner or later he would've found out, but you had to discover me this soon." Replied Trent, annoyed, leaving Atem and Jonouchi on their own.

"T-Then, he and I didn't…?" asked nervous, but with more hope the mercenary.

After giving a long sigh, Atem answered "No, not with Trent nor with anyone. You lost consciousness as soon as everything in the tavern went back to normal."

Jonouchi then started to remember what had happened the previous night, he remembered the big fight he started on the tavern, and thus, he remember he hadn't paid for his dinner, his drinks, and much less for his stay during the night.

"Do I owe anything for staying here?"

"Well-" Atem was going to give him a more detailed explanation about his economic matter of the night, but Yuugi and the grandpa started calling him, and since the grandpa also had a hangover he wasn't in good mood. "No, you don't owe us anything" he said quickly, going where he was being called from.

Jonouchi looked again at his surroundings. Yuugi and Atem were each taking care of their pets while the grandpa was giving them instructions. Yuugi had just opened the window to receive his owl, which had a mouse in its mouth, and Atem's falcon was waking up, on its feet on a coat stand. Mai picked up her quiver, which had slipped from where it was, and put it on her back, Trent was tuning his lyre, and Selene was feeding her cat, which had black fur, just like she had black hair.

In between all that, the doors of the room opened, and there they saw a very tall young man, with short brunette hair, dressed with clothes of blue hues made of fine fabrics, with golden details, and jewelry appropriate for a royal.

"Good day, in reference to the proposal I came with last night I'll be waiting for you in the first floor to discuss it; payments, kinds of works to accomplish, training, implements and tools, etc."

Having said this, assuming that everyone he was talking to had heard him and understood, he proceeded to take his leave, avoiding more cordialities than those strictly needed.

Jonouchi felt an instant dislike towards Kaiba, whom talked with abundant arrogance that was impossible for him to hide, and with such coldness that could only annoy him.

Kaiba, as he left, couldn't but gaze the mercenary. His clothes themselves weren't very elegant to say it somehow, but after the fight in the tavern, and then sleeping completely drunk on the floor, his appearance was very decayed, and he was wearing the exact same clothes he had slept in. Kaiba couldn't help himself when he looked at him with disdain, though he didn't look at him for long. He left quickly, leaving everyone in the room in a similar state to the one they were in before, except Jonouchi who was disproportionally upset and annoyed.

Fifteen minutes later the whole group was going down the stairs to the first floor, all done with their stuff, everyone ready and decent, except Jonouchi, who wasn't too different from how he woke up, or from how he fell asleep.

Once they got to the first floor they were surprised to see that there was no one but them, Kaiba, and the bar tender, and besides, there was food for each of them as breakfast. Kaiba invited them to take a seat with his cold manners and strategically cordial only to certain degree. He sat on one of the heads of the table, and the others sat on the seats left.

"Before you ask me about the prices for these breakfasts, I paid for them. I also paid to have this tavern closed until we finish our business."

Jonouchi had no idea of what was going on, but he was not going to say no to a free breakfast, as much as it came from such displeasing person. Unlike the rest, apparently, the conversation that was about to start was completely new for him, or maybe it wasn't, since he had forgotten a lot from last night. He started trying to remember what had happened, but didn't remember more aside from the fight.

"After what was discussed last night, what decision will you take regarding the three of us?" said the elder, acting in good mood only because of the possibility of obtaining money, since otherwise his hangover would take over of his actions.

"The truth is that we have granted a sorceress already, with experience, the two brothers just recently went out of their house, and without them you wouldn't work for me. I'd prefer to find another healer that isn't tied to any unnecessary person."

Yuugi and Atem felt equally insulted, but only Atem showed it through gestures, and with words.

"With all due respect, whether we do or do not have experience there's no reason to insult us in that way, you-"

"Kaiba" Interrupted Selene seeing that Kaiba wasn't reacting positively to Atem's words, before he could completely ruin his chance to his opportunities to join the group. "There's sorcerers of many types, as you must know, I know my way around with light and darkness magic, on the hand Atem is good with fire and attacks far more aggressive than mine, Yuugi instead is great with convocations and pure magic, and the abilities of the two brothers combined can be incredibly useful in battle. Personally I see a lot of potential in them, and if you allow them to learn with us they could show it to you."

Trent sighed, annoyed, and talked, with his mouth a bit full of food. "I don't know why you're helping them that much, that Yuugi kid seems less displeasing, but the other one is a bitter jerk."

Before Atem got to react, Mai answered Trent's question, with a mischievous tone and expression alike. "I know exactly why, it's obvious that she fancies the 'bitter jerk', hehe, she doesn't have bad taste at all."

"That's not true!" exclaimed Selene immediately, she and Atem didn't know how to react, and one could see that if the conversation followed through that path the original topic would get lost.

"Miss Addison, your arguments seem worthy of being considered, I'll have to think about it" declared Kaiba.

"Please Kaiba" pleaded Yuugi, not too desperate, but eager. "Our training is complete, everything we need is the opportunity to show our potential." Kaiba started to consider them a bit more, but he wasn't sure yet. "I wish to also apologize for my brother's words, it wasn't his intention to offend you." Atem grumbled faintly and rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything against Yuugi's words. Once Yuugi played out on Kaiba's ego, he decided more quickly.

"Alright, I'll give you the chance you're asking for, but I warn you, you'll be on trial, any mistake and you'll be dismissed, no matter how small it is."

Yuugi and the grandpa celebrated in moderation, Atem however didn't, but he didn't seem displeased. Trent sighed again, more so when he saw that Selene was smiling broadly without realizing, now that the Mutou and their mentor would join them.

"I'm sorry for interrupting but, what are we talking about here? I really can't understand anything" said Jonouchi tired of waiting to see if he could remember what they were talking about, since it had no result so far.

"Last night Kaiba came to us after the fight to recruit whoever was fit to join his campaign against Lord Crawford, and his Pink Knights. At the end the ones who offered themselves were the ones who're in this table" explained kindly Yuugi, whom he grew found of quickly.

"I offered myself?" asked the poor blond, thinking that maybe he'd have the opportunity to be accepted into Kaiba's campaign, and thus, also the opportunity to earn money, aside from food and shelter.

"Yes, you offered yourself in your drunkenness, the truth is your only here because of pure courtesy and pity, mostly sponsored by the good intentions of the Mutou gentlemen, since the last thing I want is to hire a second class mercenary, and to top it all an alcoholic one."

"Come here and say it-! Ouch, ouch, ouch" Jonouchi was dedicated to make Kaiba regret his words, until the hangover started acting again.

"Boy, considering how much you drank last night I'd take more care of myself" suggested Trent, being just as knowledgeable as Jonouchi and the grandpa in the area of hangovers.

"Well, with this sorted out, we'll leave. There's a carriage waiting for us outside that'll take us to my lands to start the necessary training, and to get to know each other as a team." This said, Kaiba got up from his seat, and the others followed him, Jonouchi included.

"Hey, what about me!"

"I think we were clear underdog, I'm not interested in having you in my campaign."

Everyone was getting inside a big and luxurious carriage, and Jonouchi started to lose his calm, since he was obviously going to be left behind. His mind made a huge effort, and then he managed to remember something about the previous night that could help him.

"WAIT A MOMENT!" he yelled, stopping everyone in a matter of seconds. "The grandpa hired me yesterday to join him and his pupils, he even said he was going to pay me!"

Yuugi and Atem were going to ask Sugoroku if that was true or not, but the grandpa in God knows what moment got inside the carriage and pretended he didn0t hear a thing Jonouchi had said. Atem leaned his head inside the vehicle, with a disapproving stare.

"Grandpa, tell us the truth"

"I have no idea what you're talking about young man."

"Oh, you sure do, we made a deal grandpa, while we were drinking!" yelled Jonouchi, holding onto what he could to not lose the opportunity to join the campaign.

"Could you tell me of what deal you're talking about? I'm not enjoying this" demanded the young knight.

As it was explained to him, while they were both drunk, Sugoroku offered to his 'old friend Jonouchi' to join him and the Mutou brothers to protect them, and to do minor jobs, and said that he'd receive money in return. Yuugi and Atem got to force the grandpa to fulfill his deal with Jonouchi, but after that Kaiba decided that the Mutou wouldn't join him in his campaign if that's how things would be. He was not going to have Jonouchi as a burden, at all. Yet again Selene had to negotiate with him, but this time Yuugi and Atem got into it too. Finally it was decided that the Mutou, the grandpa and Jonouchi would join Kaiba and the rest, but the grandpa was forced to assume all the expenses of Jonouchi, since Kaiba didn't want to have anything to do with him in that aspect.

One everything was settled, Kaiba got on his horse, and the others, Jonouchi included, got inside the carriage.

"Thank you all three for supporting me with that bastard over there" thanked Jonouchi.

"No need to thank us" replied the grandpa.

"I wasn't talking to you, I meant the girl over there."

"Am I or am I not going to pay you? That was the condition over which Kaiba let you come!"

"Grandpa, we had to make you pay him" said Yuugi, both scolding and trying to stop the discussion.

"You're welcome" suddenly said Selene. "Could we know what's your name?"

"Katsuya Jonouchi, but call me Jonouchi, I'm used to it. I'm a mercenary."

"My name is Trent, next to me is Selene, and right next to her, Mai. I am a bard, Selene a sorceress and Mai a ranger specialized in archery" said he, pointing at himself and at his friends.

"I'm Atem, sorcerer, Yuugi, a wizard, and Sugoroku, whom we call grandpa, he's a cleric of Moradin."

"I don't know why we had to get the mercenary with us" said Mai without annoyance, but with disdain. "We already have a knight, and on the other side I know my way around with the arch."

"Excuse me?" said Jonouchi indignant. Mai had already rejected him with little kindness during the morning, and now she said this. "I'll let you know that I'm more than just a sword, I have other talents!"

"Mmm... What other talents? I'd like to find them out" interrupted Trent, with a tone of obvious insinuation.

Jonouchi felt an enormous discomfort immediately, followed by a blush because of the interpretation that Trent gave to his words, and instinctively he started giving impulsive explanations. "N-not that kind of abilities!"

"So you don't have that kind of abilities either" said Mai with mockery and mischief.

"I don't mean that! I meant that I also know how to deal with animals and I'm very good at riding them!"

Everyone hearing the conversation brought their palms to their faces. Yuugi felt second hand embarrassment, not so much because of the conversation itself but because of how Mai and Trent were taking turns to embarrass him. Atem felt something in between laughter and that almost condescending feeling of being surrounded by way too immature people. Selene and the grandpa had similar feelings; she questioned mentally why she spent so much time with such idiots, referring to Mai and Trent, the grandpa instead was questioning why Moradin would want him to end up hiring that kind of incompetent. Mai and Trent were laughing out loud meanwhile.

"Are you good at riding, Jonouchi?" asked Trent trying to contain his laughter, moving his eyebrows from up to down. "I have something you could ride, I must warn you; it's an indomitable animal."

"Cut this out at once!" Said Selene in loud and potent voice, without losing her femininity though. "The poor guy is on a hangover, it's clear that he's battered and you won't give him a break."

"Well, fine, fine. We'll leave Jou alone, BUT! There's something that I think we're all interested in. Except Jonouchi because he isn't getting paid. Who'll get to receive the money?"

The grandpa, after hearing the word 'money', woke up from his stupor regarding the situation, paid firm and attention to the conversation, and started to take a role into it. "I think the person with the most accumulated wisdom should be in charge of that" he said faking a spirit of service and selflessness.

"Oh, but what a coincidence that you are precisely that person! I think you're just saying that because it's convenient for you _gramps_."

"I'm not your grandpa! And I don't think you have little interest in this either by the way."

"If you think I'm going to propose myself you're wrong."

"Precisely. I would never allow Trent to get near to any money that doesn't belong to him, I know him TOO WELL" interrupted Selene.

"Well, who will you propose for the charge then?" asked Sugoroku this time.

"My precious friend Selene!" said Trent hugging her, with a very broad smile.

"Hey, hey, wait! I never said I wanted that responsibility, I have enough with having to save your ass every time you get into trouble!"

"Proposing your friend! I'm glad you weren't acting out of convenience!" complained the grandpa.

"Oh but, Selene is very good at handling money, and she's very responsible" said Mai, obviously just as interested in the outcome as Trent.

"Well, I think the grandpa is who should receive the money! He obviously has more experience" said Jonouchi, yet another one with clear bias.

"Look at you! You only want him to part the money because Kaiba won't pay you a thing, and everything you'll get will come from the grandpa!" continued Mai.

From then for a while there were two pairs of people fighting, Trent with Sugoroku, and Mai with Jonouchi, until Atem, already weary of the situation, intervened. "Cut out this stupid fight!" they froze then, Atem's voice echoed like a roar. "We are, in essence, two groups of three, since Jonouchi won't get direct payment from Kaiba. As I think, the best thing to do is to make Selene receive half of the money, and the grandpa the other half, and to have both divide between their respective partners." At the end everyone agreed with Atem's idea. Though it wasn't like he gave them the option disagreeing. Now with more calm in the atmosphere, the conversation restarted in friendlier tones.

Mai went to the other side of the carriage, leaving Trent in between her and Selene, and in front of Sugoroku and Yuugi, so she could be in front of Jonouchi. "Since you're a mercenary, I'd like to discuss your experience in regards of battles" asked Mai, this time with no intentions of mocking him.

"I used to be a guard in my home town, but after that I stopped being involved in the military and became a mercenary. The truth is I'm not too good at following orders."

"Then you have no experienced in the battlefield, not even small campaigns."

"But, I learn fast."

Mai let go of a giggle. "I'm sure you do, considering how you got to join the group" and ended the sentence with a wink.

Selene, after the change of spots, was left in front of Atem and he, seeing how silent she was, decided to talk to her. "Selene, thanks a lot for helping us, it was seriously a great favor."

"Hehe, it was nothing. I'm a sorceress too, and with no experience we're nothing, I truly think both of you have potential, you just have to work to make it show."

"Could I ask; for how long have you been a sorceress? It seems like you've been one for a while."

"I discovered I am a sorceress at a very early age. Being a little girl, I started to see spirits. At first I got very scared, but when I told my parents, they took me to talk to my maternal grandmother. My grandmother was a sorceress too, and she explained to me everything I needed to know to start, to control my powers, that went out of control many times, especially when I got furious. More than once my older brothers suffered the effects of involuntary spells of mine. After learning the basics, she gave me many of her books, and I started to learn on my own and practice. When I was 15 I emancipated from my parents, and along with Trent, who's a childhood friend of mine, we went looking for adventures, he wants fame and money, I want wisdom and to be a better sorceress. Some time ago we had to go deep inside a forest, and we hired Mai so she would help us by taking care of us, and now we consider her a friend too."

"I see. You have a lot more experience than I and Yuugi." Atem after meditating a little bit, with his right hand rubbing his chin, made a decision. "Selene, could you please help us? The grandpa is a great tutor, but so far he's only taught us to act on very small spaces, calm spaces and in one-on-one duels. I assume you've got experience in duels and fight involving more people, in much more tense and disperse environments, and though you're the same age that we are you left your house three years ago. Would you be kind enough to do us that favor?"

"Of course, it'll be my pleasure."

Meanwhile, the three others had their own conversation.

"Aren't you shameless grandpa, asking to keep all the money! How low" said Trent with zero shame.

"I don't think I ever said you could call me grandpa!" Sugoroku paused his words, until he processed everything Trent had said "HOW CAN YOU CALL ME SHAMELESS?"

Yuugi covered his face, knowing what kind of afternoon he'd have with them both.

"Any problem, grandpa?" said Trent with the broadest smile.

From then until they got to Seto's lands, Yuugi spent the trip arbitrating the discussion between Sugoroku and Trent, the grandpa with his competitive spirit wouldn't tolerate not having the last word, while Trent enjoyed tremendously putting on the dwarf's nerves, which was the only reason that made him carry on. That and that he didn't let him take advantage of the situation to get more money than he should get.

Many hours later the carriage stopped, and soon Seto opened the doors of the vehicle, allowing them to get down. As soon as Jonouchi put a foot on the floor he started to whine for food, something that Seto didn't quite fancy for how rude it was, and the others thought he was somewhat out of place, but remained silent since they were as hungry as he was. Around 8 hours had passed since their last meal. Seto guided them through his not very humble home, through a beautiful garden, that in the middle of it had a fantastic white fountain, in which you could appreciate three dragons in its center that spit water. Around the fountain they could see endless white rose bushes, and blue hydrangeas contrasting, expect for the road made for carriages and horses, the rest of the garden was covered in thick green grass.

The building itself, that served as Seto's home, was a solid building made of stone, with a basic rectangular shape, almost square, with various small towers on the upper parts. Even like that, the building wasn't tall enough to count as a castle, nor was shaped as such. The doors were so luxurious and sumptuous as the rest of their surroundings, they were made of wood, with handmade carvings, very elegant, and decorations made of metal.

Seto, with the others behind him, stood before the entrance for a few seconds, arms folded, with a slightly impatient appearance. Soon servants came to open the entrance to their lord, in a hurry as to not infuriate him.

They went inside, and saw all the luxuries that Seto possessed, everything was neat, immaculate, except for a corner that was being swept by a woman.

"Please excuse the deplorable state of this room, there wasn't enough time to have everything ready."

The expressions of his guest varied between incredulity, confusion and bewilderment. What kind of life was he used to? Not even the Mutou, the richest of them after Seto, considered his house to be untidy in any way.

They were guided by Seto to the dining room, since he got the hint that they were hungry. They sat on a long rectangular table, with Seto on its head, and the others taking seats by his sides. The only seat close to his that remained unused was the one that was immediately on his right, which seemed to be reserved. This seat was later occupied by a young man, of approximately 14 or 15 years of age, with long and messy black hair, blue eyes, and brown skin.

"This is my younger brother Mokuba. He's in charge of my properties when I'm not here."

After this the each of the member of the team introduced themselves to Mokuba, who treated them with kindness and cheerfulness, something surprising to them, after getting to know his brother they didn't expect him to much warm. After they finished introducing themselves Mokuba clapped twice, and the servants proceeded to serve them their diner. "Please excuse how improvised the food is" said the boy, before a table full of food. The only thing missing were tiny details of the food, needless to say that no one had even considered complaining at all.

During diner Seto started to dictate their labors. The next day they'd start training immediately, Mai with Jonouchi, and the Mutou, Selene and Trent together, while the grandpa would instruct both groups. Everyone paid attention and discussed what was pertinent to discuss, except Jonouchi, who hadn't seen that much food in one place ever in his life, and was eating as much as he could, so much that he paid absolutely no attention to what they were saying. Seto gave them rooms, each of them on the same floor, the second floor, all neighbor rooms, and each of them communicated with the ones on their sides.

Jonouchi was about to give a big bite to the thigh of a boar, trying to eat as much meat he could get into his mouth, when Seto, after a long time of watching him with con contempt given his lack of manners at the table, got up from his seat.

"Very well, now it'll be better if we all go to our rooms, my servants will take each of you to your corresponding rooms."

Jonouchi, only then saw that they had been discussing something important while he devoured his food, given the serious faces that everyone else had. He acted as if he had paid attention, as to not look bad, and followed the rest as they were taken to the guest's rooms and was pointed to his own room.

From left to right there was Selene's room, then Mai's, then Sugoroku's, then Jonouchi's, then Atem's, then Yuugi's and at the end Trent's.

Trent couldn't get to sleep, he was walking in circles in his room, but he had never seen that much luxury, and was horribly tempted to steal everything in his sight. He needed a distraction to keep himself from doing that. Honestly he'd feel no guilt afterwards, but if Selene found out it wouldn't be good for him, and she wasn't easy to fool. Thinking on how to stop himself he thought of a brilliant idea. The one in the next room to the left was Yuugi, which fit his plan like a glove, since Jonouchi feared him because of the joke he played on him that morning, he and Atem felt profound mutual aversion, he and the grandpa had a similar relationship, more because of their shared love for money than because of bad matching of personalities, and the women already knew him too well to be fooled, not to mention that his plan needed them to not know what he wanted to do. On the other hand Yuugi was kind, always thought well of people, and got along with everyone.

He knocked his door, and Yuugi quickly opened it for him with his typical good disposition.

"I thought the men could get together and stay awake late, to get to know each other and forge positive relationship between us, we'll be working together for a considerable amount of time, and as you know your brother and I didn't hit it off from the start, and I think Jonouchi is scared to death of me."

"I think it's a good idea! I don't believe Atem will accept immediately, but I know how to convince him."

Yuugi knocked Atem's door, and after telling Trent to make no sound, so that his brother wouldn't realize that the semi elf would be joining him inside his room. Once Atem opened his door, Yuugi went in, and Trent sneaked in as soon as he could.

"Yuugi, you cheater, I never allowed this ass to get in."

"Hey, hey; I'm here with peaceful intentions. The most convenient thing is to get on our good sides if we'll be working together, don't you agree?"

Atem didn't buy for a moment his friendly speech, Trent seemed to childish, whimsical and stubborn to want to get along just like that, that was a way too mature attitude, but after Yuugi interceded Atem had no choice but to accept, although not with serious distrust towards the bard.

Once he agreed they were going to Jonouchi's room. They knocked his door and the only thing they got as an answer was an almost harsh "Busy". Trent, being as whimsical as Atem saw he was, had no patience (Nor wanted to have it) as to wait, so he used his ability of opening locked doors and went through without the blonde's permission.

Jonouchi instinctively sat on his bed and covered what he could; they found him when he was changing. Generally he wouldn't have cared as much, but after the small joke of that morning he had no trust on Trent and was extremely uncomfortable.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME IN"

"Pft, and what are you worried about" said Trent with total lightness, "I'm a man too, it's not like I have anything too different where you're covering yourself. Besides you're not my type."

"What are you trying to say by 'you're not my type', are you calling me ugly?"

They felt then how the grandpa was knocking loudly at the door that communicated their rooms, and said with great annoyance "When will all this noise stop? I'm trying to sleep over here!"

Trent smiled, with that mischief that only he had. "Jonouchi, you better cover yourself quickly, hurry up, then we'll do what I've thought of."

Jonouchi was already putting on some short pants he had, when curiosity won him over. "What exactly are you thinking about?"

"The girls are on the other side of granny's room."

"And what's it to you" said Atem. Trent so far had showed clear interest in those of his same gender.

"Let's just say that there's enough Trent for men and for women" he said with pride and vanity, and then the others got what he was trying to say, honestly they didn't expect it, but at least on Jonouchi's case it calmed him down to know that his attention wasn't only directed at men.

"And what do you want with the girls?" said with some nervousness, and a lot of sudden interest Yuugi, trying to seem only curious.

"The poor things are all by themselves, and so exposed... Especially now that they surely are wearing so little clothes. As men we have the _duty_ of keeping them safe. Who knows what could happen to them."

"Of course you're right!" exclaimed Jonouchi getting up from his bed, dressed now.

"Oh please, this sounds like an excuse to see them on their underthings" said Atem. Besides thinking that it was inappropriate he could see that Mai and Selene weren't helpless little girls, and that meant that Trent's 'brilliant' plan couldn't be of any good to them.

"I agree that we should make sure, as men, that they're safe" said Yuugi, trying to seem innocent just like the other two.

"Sure, because both are SO DEFENSELESS. Guys, leave them alone, this smells of disaster."

The door that communicated Jonouchi's room with the grandpa's opened up, showing the dwarf, who seemed to have some heroic look for some reason.

"As far as I can listen Selene is in Mai's room, with her, it's obvious that they feel unsafe since they bothered to get together on the same room. Those poor young ladies, all alone and helpless. It's our job to take care of them!" exclaimed now Sugoroku.

Atem was about to bang his head repeatedly against a wall. "Where the hell do you get that they're in any sort of danger here? This place seems 100% safe!" As if they hadn't heard him, the other four were on Sugoroku's room, to get to Mai's.

"Grandpa, Yuugi, please, let's get out of here! I'm sure that we'll have it BAD if we do this." Atem pulled them both from their pajamas, trying to get them out of there, with no success at all. Meanwhile, Trent and Jonouchi worked together on the double lock, without Atem realizing that. The door was opened soon, and through it they could see the two girls of the group, sat on Mai's bed. The blonde was wearing a very minimal outfit, something to cover her voluminous breasts, and something that looked like panties, while Selene was wearing a very short, and tight to her body, nightdress. "Damn it, I told you to...!" Atem stopped his scolding when his eyes were set on Selene. It wasn't so much that he had any fixation on her, but seeing her like that was a surprise, not just to him but to everyone else, except Trent. The young sorceress always wore her black cape, which covered almost all of her body, thus he hadn't thought that first of all she'd have such tiny waist, and though her breasts were small compared to Mai's, with her 'rearguard' and her legs she compensated, outstandingly. As for Mai, she was a very exuberant blonde, with long legs, and wide hips, along with her breasts that as we already said were quite fine, and the one who looked at her the most was Jonouchi.

The next morning all the men of the group woke up in pain. In the dining room, eating breakfast, Mai and Selene talked between each other, as if nothing had happened the night before. Seto arrived, covered in a housecoat of very expensive appearance, with his pajamas underneath it. He had his completely null face, until he saw his guests.

"What in the world happened to you all... You didn't end up even remotely as hurt after the fight in the tavern..."

Everyone, the grandpa, Trent, Jonouchi, Yuugi and even Atem, were covered in bruises, the girls had no mercy the night before, and didn't bother to ask on asking what was going on, so not even Atem got away without getting beaten.


	3. Chapter 3

The days went by quickly as the youth, and the grandpa, dedicated themselves to training with devotion. Sugoroku dedicated himself to teach Jonouchi to defend himself properly with his shield at the same time that he fought with his sword, because although he was strong and astute he lacked a lot of technique. He taught Mai to start fighting from a shorter distance, since she was an expert on fighting from a distance, but had little abilities on fighting differently.

During the trainings with the rest of the team, Sugoroku realized that Selene, despite being very capable and experienced, had a bit of a big problem; when she lost control over her temperament she also lost control over her spells and that usually had dangerous results. Given this, instead of training her in sorcery or battle, he _tried_ to teach her how to calm down and to control herself through meditation and praying, which generally worked for her, _but not when it was forces and even less when it was meant to adapt her temperament to the rest_. With Atem and Yuugi he kept with the same kind of training he gave them at home; with Atem he stressed channeling his emotions to give shape to the different spells he had, and with Yuugi he stressed on his abilities to defend himself better in battle, so that he would gain more self-confidence, since his real big flaw was his lack of security.

Trent's case was a very special one; he was talented, self-confident, and usually he didn't have issues with his temperament like his friend. BUT, he had severe problems when it came to discipline; he was lazy, comfortable, cowardly and he enjoyed playing pranks on the rest -Especially Atem- and playing and doing whatever he wanted to do instead of training as he was told to. Sugoroku tried to deal with him with patience and calm, but at the end he had to follow Selene and Mai's advice, and simply threaten him with his big mace when it was needed. When not even threats worked he punished him by sending him to work with the servants in the stud, to clean the horses' dung.

As time passed by Yuugi and Atem became close friends with Jonouchi. Yuugi generally got along with everyone; Mai saw him as some sort of younger brother, Trent was a lot less annoying to him, Selene and he got along, one could say that they were friends too. Atem and Trent were declared enemies from the beginning, since Trent saw him as competition for Selene's attention. He and Selene got along very well from the beginning, they had many things in common, felt mutual admiration and had similar personalities. And finally, in Mai he'd discovered a partner for gambling. Mai and Jonouchi started with their left feet, but it didn't take long for them to become friends, friends that got in each other's nerves all the time of course. The grandpa was some kind of mentor for all of them, for some more than others, while Seto was still a very distant person for everyone.

On a cloudy day, temperate leaning towards cold, after training for a few hours Sugoroku interrupted what everyone was doing to give them new orders.

As he clapped loudly to get their attention, he said "Very well, very well, now I want to try something new with you." Everyone stopped what they were doing to join around the dwarf, waiting to hear what he had to say. "I'd like you to form teams to practice real combat. Since there are four of you who know magic and two who use weapons you'll form two teams of three people."

"And you grandpa, what group are you going to be in?" asked Yuugi.

"I'll be the moderator of all of this. I'm aware that not all of you get along" he said casting a loaded gaze towards Trent and Atem "I don't want any serious wounds. The rules are as follow, form your groups, choose a leader and then you'll see what strategy you'll use."

Trent raised his hand, but without waiting for his turn he said, excited "I want to be with Selene!"

"That's the other thing; I'll form the groups. It'd be pretty useless if you formed the same groups as always, you have to learn how to work with everyone, not only the ones closer to you."

"And what will the groups be then?" asked with curiosity Jonouchi, he wasn't the patient kind.

"I want to team people who don't usually work together, given that the groups are as follows; the first one will consist of Mai, Trent and Atem." Atem growled a bit, but he thought that maybe then Trent wouldn't try to piss him off too much, in regards to the semi-elf, he expressed his annoyance with his always present lack of decorum. "The other team will be formed with the rest; Jonouchi, Yuugi and Selene." Jonouchi and Yuugi celebrated because they were left on the same team, with a high five, though Jonouchi accidentally used too much strength on his friend, who was left with his hand somewhat in pain after that.

"No wounds or harmful attacks, or you're getting out of the game and then I'll see what penalty I'll give you. Immobilizing or taking down your opponent is enough to beat them, doing more than that will be penalized."

With the teams ready the grandpa took his mace and drew a divider line on the soil, and drew other two to put an end to the areas of each team.

"The idea is to not let your enemy team to the end of your area. Like that, to win each three of one team must get to the end of the other area. If one of you gets to the end of the enemy area you can no longer be attacked, but you can't attack anyone."

Yuugi, Selene and Jonouchi's team got organized quickly, since there was a very friendly mood between the three of them. They appointed Selene as the leader of their team.

"Jonouchi, you're our only warrior, so we need you until the end, try to be the last one to reach the end of their area; try to tire out your opponent until Yuugi and I are already on the other side, then you can attack and come to us. It'll be better if you fight against Mai, I know her and it's hard for her to fight from too close, you'll get her tired easily. Yuugi, you go against Trent, neither you nor Atem will want to attack each other with all of your strength, I'll go against him."

Jonouchi and Yuugi nodded firmly, and got in position to start, but they saw then that their opponents were still not ready. Once again fights between Atem and Trent.

Atem had already been chosen as the leader of their team, but now there were problems between him and the semi-elf to decide who they'd fight with; Trent wanted to fight against Selene, just like Atem.

"I know how she fights, let me go against her!" demanded the bard.

"For the love of Ra, that's EXACTLY why I don't want you to go against her! She knows how you fight too! And I don't think you'll use all of your potential against her, but she won't think twice to attack you in all seriousness. You go against Yuugi. After all this time I think I know how Selene thinks; she's no fool. If I was her I'd make Jonouchi stand defending, because like Mai is our only warrior, he's the only warrior they have, and they'll want him to last. I get to fight with Selene."

Trent pouted, but didn't say anything against Atem's plan.

The teams were ready, and the battle started.

Yuugi reassured himself, and he casted Mage Armor on himself. Trent knowing that attacking wasn't really his thing, and taking advantage of Yuugi casting a spell on himself, simply chose to do what he always did when there were obstacles on his day to day life; he started to run. Jonouchi tried to stop him when he passed by him, but Mai with her whip stopped his hand and brought him to her.

"What were you going to do, hun?" she said with a naughty smile.

Yuugi, somewhat disconcerted because of Trent's reaction, took his time to start to chase him around through the field. It wasn't a very dignified image that they were giving, between the warriors and the couple of sorcerers that battled with skill.

The two sorcerers attacked with magical beams, Light of Lunia on Selene's behalf, and Ray of Flame coming from Atem. Selene's entire body was surrounded by a silver glow and beams of celestial light went to find Atem's fire in between them, his fire burning with the same passion that her light blinded. Both attacks struggled to overcome the other, but ended up by going off, without a winner. The two stood looking at each other for a while, they had already realized that they had way too similar minds and that that would make things complicated; what one thought the other had thought too.

Once Mai got all the attention of the other blonde, she dropped her whip and drew her sword. In that same instant Jonouchi drew his. From them on Mai kept provoking him; she wanted to tire him out first, like he wanted to tire her, and knowing how impulsive he was and how easy it was to irritate him she chose to let him drop Selene's strategy and attack her to get him tired. Jonouchi however tried to remain calm, and he thought that if Mai wasn't doing anything he wouldn't either, to force her to attack, though once in a while he lost his patience and attacked anyway.

Yuugi used various spells on Trent, to put obstacles on his way, and Trent now a bit tired of running casted a spell against Yuugi to stop him a bit and keep on more calmly for a while.

Yuugi was dedicated to cast Ray of Frost with a wand to Trent's feet, with no success, but getting very close to his target. At last after some time he succeeded ; Trent slipt and fell, he took advantage of the impulse to do a somersault, get in front of Yuugi and cast a spell. Yuugi, seeing him changing his strategy so fast, decided to do the same and turn more aggressive.

"Glitter Dust!" the two yelled at unison.

In that moment many white sparks appeared in front of the faces of both opponents, blinding them.

The two sorcerers meanwhile were still on the same place they started on, one in front of the other in their correspondent fields; none of them let the other pass, no matter how much they tried they couldn't cross. One tried to move and the other blocked, and the other tried to pass then and was blocked too, a vicious circle.

They were starting to get exhausted, and, panting, took a moment to look at their surroundings. Jonouchi and Mai were following the plan that both have given them; to tire the other out. Good. Trent and Yuugi had just stopped being dizzy after the Glitter Dust and continued running in circles without accomplishing much. And there they were, immobilized, none gave up. It was as if they could read the mind of the other, guess their tricks.

"Having spent all the time doing nothing but meditating instead of practicing your magic I didn't think you'd be such strong opponent" said Atem to her, genuinely admired of her. Selene being such a great sorceress didn't intimidate him however, at the contrary; it made him want to overpower her even more. His lips drew a smirk, nothing more delicious than a true challenge.

Selene read that in his eyes, defiant, and she replied with just as much mischief. "With your little experience I didn't expect you to give me problems, but it doesn't matter, it won't last", and then her smirk matched his.

The metallic sound of two swords crashing against each other was starting to fill the air. From time to time Mai got to pass to the other field, but immediately she saw herself forced to go back, and the same to Jonouchi.

Jonouchi was getting irritated.

"Are you that scared of me woman? Come and attack me at fucking once!"

"Oh darling, are you that exhausted that you have to provoke me so crudely?"

Jonouchi grumbled a bit, but he realized that he was really being too obvious and that wasn't going to help him.

Trent somewhere else in the field was more than sick, and he saw that the fight between Selene and Atem was turning out to be interesting, he wanted to watch. He decided to do what he did best. Running he took the lyre he always carried on his shoulder, turned around and started to play a melody and sing a little. In that same instant everyone around him became entranced, Yuugi included. Sugoroku, Atem, Selene, Jonouchi and Mai, all stopped what they were doing to listen to him, actually everyone who could hear the bard. Even Lord Kaiba, who was in his office checking some papers; he dropped them, and rested his head on his right hand, and his hand on his desk, to listen attentively to the song.

Like that, he played a little on the soil to rest, and then he walked slowly to his goal. Once there he finished his song, and everyone was freed of their stupor, to continue the battle.

Yuugi was left with nothing to do, with his opponent as the winner, so he thought that the only thing left was to make things equal for the two teams going to the other side. Passing by Jonouchi and Mai was dangerous, so he passed by his brother, knowing that he only had aggressive attacks, besides Selene would stop everything he tried. There was also the fact that she had him far too busy for him to do anything against him. Basically, he walked almost with Trent's same calm to the other side.

The battle between Selene and Atem hadn't moved forward since the beginning, they were equally tired, so it was a matter of time until one acted out of desperation to make things go faster. And that one was Atem. In a quick hand gesture he made many sparks appear right on Selene's face, like small fireworks and she, scared, thinking that he had used fire so close to her, moved aside. For his bad luck in that moment it started to rain, and Selene, seeing how although it was raining the sparks were still there realized that it was nothing but prestidigitation. She gave him a murdering stare, for fooling her, and he looked away, avoiding being frozen by her eyes, he just needed to whistle to make it funnier.

Atem, trying to see if making her laugh would help him said with an unnaturally calm voice "What impertinent rain, right?"

"It's over ladies and gentlemen; the game is tied" declared Sugoroku, and with a gesture he ordered them to go inside.

Entering the building they found themselves with Isono right away, Kaiba's right hand, or as Trent usually said, Kaiba's bitch. "El Señor Kaiba los espera en su humilde despacho."

Isono guided them there. In there they found themselves amongst the same general opulence of the whole building, making the description of the place as 'humble' sounded more than ridiculous.

Jonouchi scratched his head a bit and with pure naturalness he exclaimed "This is his _humble_ office?"

Isono replied, with discretion, so that Kaiba wouldn't listen to him, "Yes, the other one is on the second floor."

"I've been seeing how you've trained, and I think you're ready for your last 'test'. You must get yourself into the Foggy Forest; go through the forest until you get to the high mountains that enclose the valley. If you didn't get lost from the path, once you get to the mountains you must walk towards the north, there you'll find a waterfall, and behind it there's the entrance to the kobolds' cave. They stole a very precious chalice to one of my enemies, it's made of gold and has rubies inlayed. Bring it to me, to show me that your training is over." There was a bit of an awkward silence, which Kaiba interrupted again. "What on earth are you waiting for? Go!"

* * *

><p>The young adventurers, and the grandpa, walked through the main path of the Foggy Forest as indicated by Kaiba. The view was sort of depressing; the trees formed a vault that didn't allow them to see the sky, except for some occasional sunlight that filtered in, lightening the road. Unlike their path, everything was covered by a thick grass, there were abundant fern, climbing plants, and moss all over the trees' logs. A thick green mist stirred up to about 50 centimeters above the soil.<p>

"Who the hell does he think he is?! One thing is that he's paying us – AND BY THE WAY I HAVEN'T GOTTEN NOT ONE FUCKING ALLOY YET, but that he's paying us doesn't excuse him putting our lives at risk like this!"

"Stop crying, you big baby! What kind of creatures do you think live here with this toxic fog on the ground? Do you want them to see us and attack us?" said Mai, with her arch and arrow ready, pointing to the ground, in case that any creature got close to them.

Jonouchi meanwhile was holding his sword firmly, before his face, although he didn't really know what he'd do if anything dangerous approached them, but it didn't hurt to be prepared.

Yuugi had summoned a small air elemental, which was shaped after a halfling, but was completely made of air. It took the labor of dissipating the fog that surrounded the group, but the space that he could clean away wasn't too broad. Meanwhile, to lighten the road, Selene casted Dancing Lights, since the more they got themselves into the forest the less the light filtered between the trees' tops, the lights the young woman had casted looked like big fireflies, but the color was whiter.

Jonouchi, seeing these peculiar lights appearing so suddenly, lost in his thoughts as he was, tried to attack the lights, until the grandpa told him, from the back of the group "Idiot, that's a spell." In that moment he put down his sword a bit and kept walking in silence, blushed.

Everyone was ready to defend, to attack or to do whatever they needed whatever happened. Except Trent. He sticked to Selene, behind her, ready to run away from the forest whatever happened, maybe trying to pull Selene by her cape with him.

They walked a long distance with no odds, except stumbling across with one or two small snakes.

"Everyone stop!" yelled Mai out of nowhere, getting herself in front of the group. She looked at the sil quickly, squared her thoughts fast and shoot an arrow, with precision, hitting a target that nobody else could see yet.

They heard a strange cry, and she said "Jonouchi, draw your sword! It's one of those disgusting beetles." Jonouchi followed Mai's orders, strange movements of a creature walking were heard, fast towards them, but they still couldn't see it because of the mist, which hid it.

A moment passed and they could see how the back of the creature poked out, it was of an iridescent green. The beetle retreated a bit, to get some impulse, and approached them again.

"It's going to spit!" said Mai, as if she wanted them to help her, though she shoot an arrow again without allowing them to do anything.

The creature screeched again, this time the noise did annoy the audience, because of how high pitched it was. The bug changed its strategy and went to attack her directly.

With the creature not hidden by the fog anymore, the air elemental immediately changed its shape after it saw the creature, taking the shape of a whirlwind, of its same original height.

Mai, without thinking twice, took her sword, to not give it a chance to do anything, and went through its shell to the ground, in a matter of seconds. "Disgusting insect." The ranger took her sword from the corpse of the bug, and shook it in the air to clean it, to then sheathe. She turned around and ordered "The way is free", to then keep walking on.

The rest were a bit dizzy, and a bit scared, not because of the bugs that could be near, they were scared of Mai. So much that Trent gave a serious thought to giving back the sack of coins she'd 'lost' in the tavern before going to train with Kaiba. Not even the Gods knew what she'd do to him if she found out.

As they kept walking the air elemental summoned by Yuugi kept clearing the mist, so that they could see the path, but there was a moment in which this path simply disappeared. They were amongst nowhere. Before giving into panic they searched around the place to find where the path continued, and after some time, without finding anything, they started to allow themselves to give into panic.

The first one was the blond man.

"Where the fuck are we?! I see no fucking path anywhere, no mountains, no waterfalls, no anything like that!"

"Excuse me, but I'm heading back! I didn't get into this to work in these conditions, this is beyond appalling and inhuman!" complained the bard.

Yuugi then was the one who tried to calm everyone down, as always "Calm down! The path must be somewhere, Mai is a good ranger, and I don't think Kaiba lied to us, why would he want to get rid of us? I mean, he's paying us."

"This is all your fault!" yelled then the grandpa, pointing Jonouchi "If you hadn't insisted on joining us then Kaiba wouldn't want to get rid of us!"

"Are you blaming me?! You offered me a job!"

"Now, everyone calm down! Do you really think Kaiba would stoop this low?" interrupted Atem, who was starting to get really annoyed by all the fights.

"Sure, he wouldn't stoop low, UNLIKE SOMEONE ELSE" added Selene, still extremely irritated because of the morning's incident.

And then the fight seemed never-ending, nobody wanted to make peace and even Yuugi started to get angry, and it wasn't until Mai spoke out loud that everyone else shut up.

"SHUT UP NOW!" roared the ranger, effectively stopping everything. "Meanwhile you were fighting like a bunch of babies I found the damned mountains that Kaiba was telling us about, they're right towards the same direction we were walking in all along. The path disappeared, but in a bit less than 20 meters the forest ends, I can see the light from here."

Somewhat ashamed of their behavior, everyone kept silent and followed Mai. Jonouchi felt especially guilty, since he was the one who started it all and bothered Mai, he came to her and apologized, so she sighed and accepted his apology, after cuffing him around the head. Unlike Jonouchi there was someone who didn't feel guilty at all, and that was Selene. She was still very angry about what Atem did in their duel, and he could feel that she was furious at him, although after her commentary you didn't have to be too bright to see that. The big 'problem' was that each every few minutes he could feel her eyes on him and it wasn't pleasant at all.

They walked for a while, until they finally arrived to the foundation of the mountains that Kaiba had talked about. Once there everyone calmed down, since seeing the mountains they could trust Kaiba's word. They stayed there for a while watching the immensity of the mountains, and it was in that huge silence that they could hear a cascade in the distance the water falling against the rocks, it seemed to be close. They walked a long way between the mountains and the end of the forest, the landscape was impressive, the mountains went through many miles into and the further they were, the taller they became. The tallest points had thick ice and glaciers, glaciers that fed the river they were looking for.

After they arrived at the bed of the river, and if they looked to their left they could see a waterfall; they went to it. Just as Kaiba said at the sides of it you could see the entrance of a cave, hidden behind the water. One after the other they went inside, all bending down, except Sugoroku, given that the height of the entrance was about a meter and a half. Because of that Sugoroku went in first, before everyone, since he was the only one able to fight freely, in that reduced space. They went in a couple of meters and got to some kind of hall, a lot wider than the entrance itself.

"What did it feel like to have to bend down for the first time in your life, Atem?" said laughing the semi-elf, who was a lot taller than the two Mutou.

"I'll remind you that I height about as much as him" said Selene, with a murderous stare and deathly voice.

Atem simply rolled his eyes and ignored him, through time he'd realized that ignoring him was what hurt Trent the most.

The space there was pretty big, humid, cold, and had it not been by the torches there, completely dark. A dissonant water echo was heard there, since the room acted as a sound board. At the other side of the room there was another corridor much wider than the previous one, but this one had mining rails. Sat on a small desk dozed off a kobold. It was a creature that had the characteristics of a reptile; scales, claws, elongated muzzle with two small holes for a nose on its point, with small sharp teeth, though this one was obviously two-legged, it didn't creep. It wasn't taller than 20 inches, it was dressed in a sort of very simple armor made of leather, not too well kept, and had small weapons with it. It looked like a small dinosaur soldier.

With the bard's acid commentary the creature had its slumber interrupted, and it, stealthily, took a stick and beat a gong it had by its side repeatedly. The kobold screamed, with its high pitched voice, with all its strength, that there were strangers in the cave, in its native tongue, Draconic. A patrol designated specifically to attend that type of business arrived immediately, as if they had been all day waiting for intruders, all standing next to each other, with big shields – compared to their own size – before them protecting them, and in between the shields there were small spears leaning out. The team, instead of being scared or intimidated, got a bit of a laugh out of the patrol of kobolds, laughter that everyone tried to contain to be respectful.

The troop started to advance towards them. They were organized in a four per three formation. Once the entrance of the corridor was clean the kobold that was in it came it running, screaming "Everyone in position!" many times, franticly. The first line attacked the intruders, while the others divided themselves in two per two groups, leaving a bit of space between them towards the corridor. The kobolds that went against them took out small slingshots and surrounded them, to then thrown rocks at them in order to move them aside as if they were a flock. The group had no choice but to move towards one of the walls, out of annoyance more than pain. Most of them were irritated, especially those who didn't usually have much control over their temperaments (Meaning: Jonouchi and Selene). Atem was pretty irritated, but tried to calm down, though it was clear that he was very tense, like Mai. Yuugi amongst everything tried to focus to think of how to get out of the situation, hopefully without hurting the kobolds. Sugoroku was throwing various curses, and Trent? When nobody saw him he took the chance to get in between all of his mates so that no rock would hit him.

When they were in between two groups these pointed their spears to them and threatened them to make them enter the cave through the wide corridor they had behind them. That corridor parted into two towards the sides. In each side there were eight kobolds organized in two lines. Once in the middle of the two corridors a group of kobolds that were in small hiding places in the walls of the cave itself started to throw various insects and other creatures at them, such as earwigs, worms, various beetles, cockroaches, centipedes, spiders and scorpions. After this distraction the kobolds tried to commence their attack. Although all of them reacted with hysteria, the one who lost all of her self-control was Mai, who loathed all that sort of creatures. She started to scream and attacked the kobolds back with fury. Jonouchi felt alike and fought along with her, like Selene, who took out her baton. A while after the 28 kobolds were all knocked-out on the floor.

After that quick start they were into a combat-mood.

"The way parts into two, what do we do now?" asked Yuugi with an executive tone. "I think the only thing we can do is to break into two groups" replied his brother. And so, Sugoroku separated them into a group of three and a group of four. Jonouchi, Atem and Selene in the first one, and him, Mai, Yuugi and Trent in the other one.

They traveled across the tunnels and all their hidden corners, looking for the chalice. They found a few kobolds dedicated to various tasks, such as the extracting of precious stones, others in charge of carrying them in carts, and deeper into the cave, others in charge of polishing them, separating them by kind and color, and finally, a lot deeper inside, others in charge of taking care of their young ones. As they moved into the tunnels they went by knocking out kobolds discretely, but they didn't do such with the last groups. This happened in separated areas of the cave with both groups as they walked by. In turn, time passing by, they realized that the cave became wider and wider. In the trio Selene was the only one who spoke Draconic, and so she knew, in a very superfluous and rusty way, the world of dragons and similar beings, while in the quartet it was the grandpa that knew a bit about it because of his years of experience, and the fact that the cave was expanding like that as they went in gave them many suspicions, and not positive ones. They could only wait for Kaiba to not have intentionally sent them to such unsafe trip.

Selene heard one of the female kobolds telling the other females and their youth "Go into your refuges, we're being attacked. Hopefully the boss will defend us." This alarmed her, and confirmed her suspicions completely. She went to grab one of the kobolds they had knocked down on the floor and shook it a bit to wake him up, to then ask it in Draconic "Who's your boss? Talk now if you don't want me to knock you out again. This time I'll be a lot less merciful."

The kobold, nervous, replied "Our boss is one of the most powerful sorcerers in the area. He's very greedy, and will surely defend us!" said with foolish naivety the creature.

"That information is USELESS. Do I have to get it out of you using other methods?"

"He's one of our own."

Selene sighed, she felt like she couldn't get much useful information. "Where are the treasures?"

"The boss keeps them in his room" replied the kobold pointing to its left with shaky hands.

The sorceress let it go, with surprising kindness considering how brutally she had treated it before. The kobold ran away immediately, and she proceeded to tell her two mates what she'd been told.

Meanwhile, in the other group, seeing the fuss, Yuugi, to simplify things decided to cast on himself the Comprehend Languages spell. He understood then what the few guards that were left were saying "They must be thieves, don't let them go up to the boss' room!" Looking around him he saw that the path that went up closer to them was to their right, and told his mates where they had to go. The quartet fought against the kobolds that were left to go through to the treasure room.

The two paths that the groups took were practically identical; they were ascendant spirals and the rock that formed the walls was almost flawlessly carved. Once the path became flat the walls became covered in perfectly shaped rock bricks, and the floor was covered in black and white paving. The walked through the corridors, one group turned to its left and the other to its right, and they could see each other on the other side of the corridor, though they were at a relatively big distance. Because of the distance, and to stay hidden, instead of speaking out loud they used signals, but in the middle of everything they started to hear a very peculiar conversation.

A voice said _"So I was on the right, I'm not alone in this room. Get out from behind my property and show your face!"_

The team didn't know if it was talking to them or not, the fact that they were speaking a language that only two, and momentarily, could understand wasn't helping them either. They only knew that the voice that had spoken was too deep to be the voice of a kobold, or humanoid. Selene and Yuugi made gestures to everyone to stay just where they were, and in silence.

"_I see you've already noticed my presence, though it was to be expected that I wouldn't go by unnoticed before you."_

"_SHOW YOUR TRUE SHAPE!" roared the first voice._

"_You're looking at it, dear friend" said mockingly and tauntingly the second voice, that sounded a lot more ordinary that the first one._

"_Ha! How pathetic, your presence speaks better of you than your own image. Now, let go of my chalice!"_

While the conversation continued the group stood listening, until they heard the last growl of what they were almost sure was a dragon.

"SHIT!" screamed both Yuugi and Selene at unison. Before both could give any order a ridiculously tall man passed by one of the corridors, carrying the chalice that they were looking for, running, and said to them "What are you waiting for? RUN!" between laughter and rush. He turned around to the side in which Selene, Atem and Jonouchi were, and instantly both this group as well as the rest followed him, the other group running faster to avoid stumbling across whatever the dragon breathed.

"AN AMBUSH!" roared the dragon fiercely, as if it was alarming everyone around him. Once it did that, a toxic fog, colored green, came out of its mouth, in the humanoids' direction.

"SO THAT'S WHY THIS SHITTY FOREST IS FOGGY! KAIBA, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" screeched Trent indignant while he ran with the rest.

The dragon was apple green colored, heighted around 26 feet on its four limbs, had its wings somewhat against its body to be able to walk on the corridors, and above its head it had a crest that descended down to its tail. Its features were similar to those of a crocodile, but its face was flatter.

They started to go through the corridors again, with the dragon after them, not too far. Luckily for them the space became narrower and narrower and that gave them advantage. In the middle of the run they gazed with some frustration at the chalice that the surprise guy was carrying. "Excuse me, but we need you to hand us that chalice afterwards" said Yuugi, checking if he'd go along with him.

The man looked down at him with disdain, saying "No, get your own!"

"We'll take care of that later!" said the grandpa, running as fast as he could with his poor old and short legs.

When they got to the room in which they'd interrogated the kobold, there was a small patrol of them prepared to attack them, trying to stop them from going. The carrier of the chalice put it amongst his clothing and with a quick hand gesture he casted an Orb of Fire, burning everything before them. Including the poor creatures, who ran around screaming and burning.

"That wasn't necessary!" exclaimed Jonouchi.

"Don't bother me and keep running, unless you want to go next!" said without stopping at any moment, and with no other feeling but tedium.

They got to the room in which they met their first kobold. There they ran to the entrance with the last strength that they were left with. The dragon breathed onto them a cloud of toxic fog through the corridor, and roared once more, enraged since it couldn't pass through it. Afterwards it turned around, and walked in the opposite direction to the entrance, appearing to be backing off.

Now out of the cave, they dove into the river, under the waterfall. The adventurers thought that they could rest, but they saw how the honorific member of the group dove out of it, with the same rush as before.

"Where are you going so scared?" asked Mai.

"Do you actually think the dragon will be at peace given that I stole a piece of its treasure? It turned around to come out from the cornice up there" he said pointing to some sort of balcony around the top of the mountain. Without thinking, everyone came out of the water and followed the guy, to save their lives.

"Kaiba, the bastard! How can he send us to do this task without warning us about the dangers?" growled Atem furiously.

"FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER, HE'LL HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS" yelled Jonouchi. He was not just a huge egocentric jerk anymore, he was an almost murderer.

"Technically, he IS going to pay you, idiot" replied Sugoroku. Something in the stranger's expression changed the moment he heard him mentioning money, but he kept running in silence.

They kept running a long way through the forest, following the steps of the most recent member of the group, and suddenly they lost sight of him, as if he had vanished in the mist. They looked around everywhere to find him, but soon they forgot about that and kept running. It was preferable to lose the chalice than their lives (Although not by much considering how unbearable Kaiba would become). When they started to ove forward Sugoroku, who was at the end of the group, felt like he was being grabbed by his ankle and dragged to the ground.

"They're taking me away! Carry on without me, forget about me!" said melodramatically the dwarf. Everyone except the Mutou looked at each other quickly, shrugged and were going to keep running, but before they could go away much they heard the voice of the stranger once again. "Idiots, it's me! Come!" And just like that, the earth swallowed Sugoroku. The Mutou went after him right away, and the rest hoping to save their lives did the same. They were in a kind of den, hidden. "These are the dens of the mist beetles" to wich Mai trembled and gave an expression of disgust. "As long we keep our noses covered with some fabric we'll be safe."

They had to hide in that den for a long time waiting for the way to be clear, and given this they had to talk discretely. Just out of coincidence Atem and Selene were next to each other, and she kept not answering to him and treating him harshly, until he grew sick of lowering himself. His pride was just as essential to him as hers was to her, and he'd had enough.

"What the fuck do I have to do for you to stop being angry at me?!"

With the snap of the young man the rest stood silent, expectant. Atem didn't get angry more often than any normal person, but from the few times they had seem him angry they knew his anger was comparable to hers. The strange man found the situation to be quite entertaining.

"I want you to tell me why you had to go so low!"

"It's not that big a deal! It's not like I did something grave to you!"

"The fact that you made me BELIEVE that you did is even worse. What kind of fool do you think I am?! I thought you respected me!"

"I do respect you!"

"IT DOESN'T SHOW."

"Hey, lower your voices, we're going to-"

"SILENCE" they interrupted the grandpa at unison.

"You always pretend to be honorable, you say that cheating or not playing to the maximum is showing lack of respect towards your oponent! It's CLEAR that you don't respect me at all."

"IT'S NOT THAT!"

"Then what?!"

"You make me act out of myself!" There was general silence, and both feel a bit watched. Selene was starting to understand what his words meant. "I'm sorry, alright? I feel very ashamed of what I did, I have no idea what happened to me. I had never done anything like that before and I regret it. I really do respect you a lot, but no one had taken me out of my limits like that before. Please, forgive me for insulting you like that."

Selene stood silent, somewhat surprised, but she didn't seem displeased. She gave a small smile, and said to him "It's fine." He smiled back at her and have a lithe sigh of relief. Truly not even he knew what got to him in that moment, but it was true that she put him in such position that he acted out of the norm. And for her to understand that reason why he did what he did was that, was far more of a compliment than anything else; of course she wasn't going to tolerate it to happen again, but she understood that he thought of her as a great opponent. And that's how their fight ended.

With their peace came also boredom for the group, and Trent, who was the one who tolerated boredom a lot less than the rest, he asked the stranger, "And who are you supposed to be?"

His deep and coarse voice said with a taste of annoyance "I'm a sorcerer expert in pyromancy and telekinesis."

"Really? My brother is also a sorcerer expert in pyromancy!" said Yuugi, trying to start a conversation.

"But I doubt he knows spells from the kingdom of Kavir."

"You do? I didn't know that there was people who still knew them. It'd be good if we practiced together some time" said Atem friendly, with interest.

"Maybe, it could be fun" replied the other person, with a double meaning behind his words.

"I think I wasn't clear" interrupted the semi elf, "I meant to ask your name."

"By Mystra, what an insolent being!"

"Aaw no, we already have our share of conceited jerks, we have enough with just Kaiba!" meddled, very irritated, Jonouchi.

"Kaiba?" asked the stranger with a tone very different from the previous one. "Do you work for him?"

"Yes, why the question?" asked Sugoroku immediately, with some distrust.

"That's really good to know! You work for a very good friend of mine. My name is Aalaster Al-Asif."

"Aalaster Al-Asif...? Impossible! You'd have to be around my age!" said the grandpa.

Aalaster's mind worked fast, he had screwed up a lot. "Eh, oh! I think you're talking about my great-great grandfather! I'm Aalaster the IV."

"Oh..." muttered Sugoroku, without know much what else to think or say. What a coincidence.

They kept talking for a while, everyone introducing themselves to Aalaster, and waiting for it to be safe to get out to go to Kaiba. After some time Aalaster asked "Does anyone have a mirror?"

"What for, are you that vain? We don't even have much light" said Mai with some mocking.

"No dear" replied Aalaster, instantly irritating Mai, "Since we have no crystal ball we can use a mirror to spy certain places or people. Quiero ver si el dragón ya volvió a su cueva." Selene took her bag and took out of it a relatively big hand mirror, and gave it to him in silence. Aalaster received it and putting his hand over it he pronounced certain words, and it started to shine, on it the image of the dragon's cornice appeared, in which it was walking in circles, a bit upset. "It's the time, it's not paying attention. We have to get out of the forest without making too much of a fuss." Going out of the den they could finally look at Aalaster with more calm; not only he was tall and slender and they could appreciate earlier, he also had bronze colored skin, amber and almond shaped eyes, long reddish black hair, and rather sharp features and face shape. He was dressed in red mostly, with black and had jewelry made of red gold and ruby stones.

The group went out of the Foggy Forest, they took their time, considering that they could make no noise, nor use the path, but they got to their destiny safe and sound. Once outside the forest, everyone looked at the chalice that Aalaster had with him. He noticed how everyone was watching his new treasure, and not too discretely he put it away again amongst his clothes. They continued walking, understanding that Aalaster wasn't going to give it voluntarily. Everything was silence, until they heard Trent's screech.

"WHO THE FUCK HIDES A SNAKE IN THEIR CLOTHES?!" yelled the bard, who had tried to secretly get his hold on the chalice, and had been bitten by a small snake colored like sand. Aalaster started to laugh out loud, and said "I introduce to you Ennameshara, my loyal companion. I hope you learned your lesson." The grandpa, who had gone to aid Trent with the poison right after, hearing the name of the snake asked with lot of curiosity "Ennameshara? Wasn't that your great-great grandfather's snake?"

"Oh no! It's a family tradition to name the female snakes Ennameshara!" he said almost laughing.

"Really cute, but we need that chalice" said Mai.

"Get your own!"

"That's what we were up to and you got it just a couple of minutes before us!" continued Jonouchi.

"Bad luck for you guys."

"Please Aalaster, we really need to give Kaiba that chalice" pleaded Yuugi.

"So that's why Kaiba hired you!"

Everyone felt then like Aalaster was up to something, and it was Atem whom, frowning and looking distrustful said to him "What do you want?"

"Now we're getting to the good stuff. I'm interested in the chalice as an art piece, but if Kaiba spends this many resources on getting it it means that he's willing to pay for it, and I'm interested in that, so I'm going with you."

The rest looked at each other and said all together "We'd still be bringing the chalice", and kept going with Aalaster to Kaiba's place. Once they got there they walked towards Kaiba's office, finding him there. Kaiba didn't express anything besides rising an eyebrow, and with certain indignation he asked "Who's this?"

"Wasn't he Kaiba's dear friend" muttered Trent to the grandpa, suspicious.

"Good afternoon Lord Kaiba, let me introduce myself: my name is Aalaster Al-Asif, pyromantic sorcerer from Kavir, jeweler craftsman, and art collector" he introduced himself on his own with arrogance. Seto's face didn't change a bit, he seemed like a statue. He directed his face, still without changing his expression, with a face that made them understand that if they didn't tell him why the hell that guy was there, a guy who wasn't of his smallest interest, they were going to do very badly.

Then Sugoroku spoke. "Eh, well, this guy stole the chalice right before we did, for very little, and we ran away together from the cave-"

"FROM THE DRAGON THAT WE HAD NO IDEA WAS THERE!" interrupted Jonouchi, with rage in his face.

"Who the shit do you think you are-!" started to complain Trent, who was as well interrupted by Selene. She wasn't too happy with the situation either, she was actually just as mad as Jonouchi and him, but she had no intention of putting her life in such risk to then get fired because of her friend's lack of decorum. "With all due respect I think it would've been very appropriate for you to have warned us beforehand that there weren't just kobolds there, if you want my opinion" she intervened, her voice calm, but her expression not so much.

"And the chalice?" kept asking Kaiba, still inexpressive.

"Here it is!" said Aalaster taking out the chalice from his clothing, triumphant. "I think we can start our negotiations now."

Kaiba looked at him and at his chalice as if they weren't anything important, and replied "To be honest I just wanted them to bring it as a final proof of their training, and they succeeded. Now I was thinking about melting it down."

Aalaster hugged his chalice tightly, overprotective, and looked at him with threatening eyes.

Knowing that everyone risked their lives, without knowing beforehand what they were going to face, they got mad. Mai took out an arrow and placed it, tensed her arch and pointed to the ground, Jonouchi took his sword and took it out of its cover a bit, Yuugi didn't do a thing, although one of his eyes started to twitch, one of Atem's hand started to burn in flames involuntarily, just like a completely visible black aura surrounded Selene, Trent started to curse out loud, while the grandpa did the same to himself. And Kaiba? Kaiba didn't even notice.

"You can go to your bedrooms now. I'll see you tomorrow in the main room after breakfast to start our campaign" he said to the group, and then looked at Aalaster "You can leave my property."

Aalaster, still holding onto his chalice, gave a firm"No."

"How the hell do I kick you out?" said Kaiba now tired, seeing that his team was in no disposition of helping him, and that Aalaster wouldn't go on his own, unless he gave him something in return.

"I want something in return."

"I can imagine, I'm not stupid. What do you want?" Aalaster shamelessly started to look around the room and what was in it, as if he was out shopping. "I'll tell you right away that I'm not willing to give up something big, I have people that will kick you out."

Aalaster kept looking, until his eyes found a bust of Kaiba himself made of pure platinum, and it was solid. "I want that!" he said pointing to it, "Or its value in gold."

"Excuse me?"

And everyone was watching expectant, some more obviously than the others.

"What you just heard! Although... There could be another solution."

"And that'd be...?"

"Let me join your campaign, and give me the freedom to sack your rivals. I won't ask for payment."

"Deal."

"Hey!" exclaimed Mai surprised, "What a surprise! I found the sack of coins I lost in the tavern inside of my gamebag." And meanwhile, Trent played the innocent.


End file.
